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]]>Abra is extremely proud to be a part of Petrific, an online application dedicated to helping people take care of their pets.
The marketing we’ve provided for this project is a great example of the concerted range of marketing activities Abra can bring to supporting a project’s success. It’s also another example of our love for making the world a better place through marketing.
Great Marketing Begins with Defining the Product
Abra was first introduced to this project when we were hired to develop an online health record. This initial project never saw fruition, however, Abra later re-connected with 3 of the original partners about moving forward with a related project.
Given the challenges of meeting HIPAA requirements, Abra made the suggestion to focus the project on developing a health record system for pets. This gave us an exciting opportunity to develop a product to help people care for their pets, while avoiding having the project bogged down by navigating the legalities of HIPAA.
What is Petrific?
The basic concept of Petrific is that most vets offices have antiquated medical records systems for pets. Everything is in paper folders and if a pet owner needs access to their pet’s information, it’s a cumbersome process to get it. It’s even more of a nightmare if they move and need to get their pet’s health history to a new vet.
The other side of Petrific is focused on giving veterinarians an electronic medical record system that makes it easier to update pet’s health records and provide access to this information to the owner. This is especially important if a pet is lost or gets hurt or sick while traveling. A vet anywhere in the world can get access to the pet’s record to treat them based on the most accurate information. (Learn more about Petrific.)
Abra Marketing created this fun, lo-fi video to help introduce people to Petrific and all it has to offer.
Marketing for Start-ups
There is so much that goes into helping a brand-new company succeed, and Abra loves being a part of it. With Petrific we’ve wanted everything to be just right to help fulfill the vision of making the world a better place for pets, their owners and vets.
In addition to helping shape the direction of the company to focus on pets, Abra Marketing provided.
Naming
A name is the anchor of the brand and is critical to the success of a company. Naming is no easy task, requiring a mixture of creativity, science, and somehow just “getting it right”. I’ll tell you it can be a maddening process, but when the right name hits you, you know it and it’s an awesome feeling. For Petrific we wanted to give a hint of what the company was about (pets) and also capture the excitement of the product we were developing. As with all naming, we wanted something short and memorable. Petrific combines “Pet” and “Terrific” to create an anchor that captures the company’s passion for pets.
Domain Name
Petrific.com was already taken when the name was selected, but noticing it was not in use, Abra began a vigil to monitor the domain’s status and when it came available, we successful navigated an arduous bidding process to win the name, making it our primary domain in addition to the .net, .biz and .org domains we had already acquired.
Branding
Abra worked closely with the partners to develop all branding components, including the trademark (logo), tagline, position statements, style sheets, and other elements that define the brand. I should add that this is an ongoing process that we revisit regular to constantly verify we are on course and making efforts to mature our brand as the company grows.
Website and Online App Development
Abra provided all development of the website and online functionality. I won’t go into all specifics, but Petrific contains hundreds of hours of programming to provide user registration, the ability to manage accounts, incredible attention to detail in user-friendliness and fucntionality, payment processing, and a powerful Administration area with reporting systems in the backend.
Marketing and Online Marketing
Abra’s team leads the efforts to build Petrific’s users. This is an ongoing process that is refined monthly as we see the results of our efforts. Our marketing toolset currently includes:
– online advertising
– social media
– SEO
– advertising in national and regional pet-related publications
– direct marketing to veterinarian offices and organizations
– publicity
Mobile App Development
We are still in the early stages of this project and our marketing efforts are constantly being refined. We’ve found it’s especially important in a project like this to stay closely tuned to your customers. The core of all marketing of course if starting with a great product. A critical part of our efforts is contacting current users directly every month to get their feedback on Petrific. It is incredible what this insight has given us and we are constantly refining Petrific based on that information.
Partially based on customer feedback, we have begun development of a mobile app to make it easier and more fun for users to engage with Petrific on a regular basis.
Abra Loves You, Petrific
Marketing of a start-up is such an exciting process. We’ve been able to help take an idea in someone’s head, make it a reality, and slowly, but surely build it into a working business that provides rewards for owners and users equally.
In fact, Abra has been so excited about Petrific, that we became partners in the company from early in its inception.
If you love pets, check out Petrific!
]]>Abra is a partnered in a number of start-ups, providing our expertise in branding, marketing, and web development. It’s really exciting to be a part of a complete project like this where we get to be involved in every facet of seeing an idea go from literally notes on a napkin to – in some cases – actually profitable online businesses.
One of these projects is an online photo and video-sharing website called FamilyBook.
One of the partners had shared the site with some potential new users and received a laundry list of new features they thought should be added to the site.
Below is my response. I think this will also give insight into anyone taking a look at their own brand.
When running a project like FamilyBook, all sorts of suggestions from users will come in.
It’s important we are very careful about determining which suggestions fit with our vision for the product and our users and which should be ignored.
Google became the #1 search engine because when they came out they did exactly the opposite of what was most popular at the time. All the search engines back in the nineties were pages filled with features. Google came out with a simple white page with only one function: a search box in the middle.
While everyone else was trying to out-zig eachother, they zagged.
I think FamilyBook’s biggest strength is that it is the opposite of Facebook. It’s for the people who don’t want their lives out for everyone in the world to see. They just want to share something important to them with the people that are important to them. They don’t want to be a part of this big ‘social media’ thing.
In fact, I think they’re the ‘Mark’s’ of the world who really don’t get the Facebook frenzy.
It’s like Robert, the coach of my son’s soccer team. Robert doesn’t want anything to do with texting. To him, a phone is for phone calls.
He is certainly not interested in Facebook or Twitter. But he is really excited about the FamilyBook page I set up so we can share videos of the kids games and use them as a tool to teach the kids things their doing right and wrong.
I think the privacy and values of FamilyBook are its biggest strength, followed by ease of use.
It’s important to keep our product simple and focused. That’s how new users will be able to quickly get their mind around what it is and connect with it.
Later in the lifecycle it may make sense to add more features, but for now we should keep it as focused as possible.
All this brings us back to our branding statements that I think should be what we are working on most.
What is FamilyBook?
Who’s it for?
Why should they try it?
What will it do for them?
Once we have clear answers to these questions, we’ll have a stronger message to promote the site and also assess how it should evolve.
]]>Responses to the video section is less than I had hoped but still includes some pieces that help document the event:
The Pink Sundial View/Share created a nice ongoing piece that will capture and continue to document this event. I am hoping to develop more marketing elements that will continue the dialogue between Nor-Cal Think Pink and their audience.
]]>http://www.norcalthinkpink.org/vs_home
On Think Pink Day, 10/15/2009, Nor-Cal Think Pink will be lighting the Sundial Bridge in Redding, CA in pink lights – with the help of Morpheus Lights – as part of their incredible efforts to raise awareness of breast cancer and the importance of early detection . The pink lighting of the Sundial Bridge will also include pink refreshments, live music, and a talk by Nor-Cal Think Pink organizers and breast cancer survivors.
So why does a marketing agency include Web Applications as one of their service lines?
When we received approval to light the Sundial Bridge in pink, I knew we would get a lot of great attention to Think Pink’s cause in the local area and hopefully the region.
But I wanted to take this local event and find a way to get more exposure from it. That is when I came with the concept of the Pink Sundial Bridge View/Share Web App.
The concept goes like this: the Pink Sundial Bridge event will draw a lot of people who will be taking photos and videos of the event. Naturally, afterward they will proceed to a variety of photo-sharing and video-sharing resources (flickr, youtube, etc) to upload and share those images.
It is my hope that be creating and publicizing a dedicated sharing site for this event, we will be able to capture a bulk of these photos and videos that would otherwise be drawing attention elsewhere. Nor-Cal Think Pink’s Sundial Bridge View/Share will hopefully also eclipse these other sites by creating a uniquely focused collection of all of these still and moving pink images in one place.
The benefits of the system are:
1) I believe it will actually create a unique, fun experience for the people sharing images and video vs. if they were just dumping them into the mass of photos and videos on all the other site. They will actually be participating in the creation of an online public art piece.
2) It will draw more people in contact with Nor-Cal Think Pink and their breast cancer awareness messages for multiple audiences:
– those who want to see the images of the pink Sundial Bridge
– those who want to share their images and videos of the pink Sundial Bridge
– friends and relatives of people who upload to the site who then refer people to the site.
In addition to expanding Nor-Cal Think Pink’s message to more people locally and regionally, it hopefully opens up our message to a potentially national and maybe even international audience.
3) An essential piece of the strategy behind the site is in addition to the larger audience we seek to create, the web site now gives us more of an opportunity to create ongoing dialogue with these visitors. Most of Nor-Cal Think Pink’s efforts center on Breast Cancer Awareness Month every October and specifically the activities of Think Pink Day. Through this enhanced website, we are seeking to create an enticing feature to draw in people regularly, create a relationship, and have an opportunity to create a consistent communication of the opportunity we all have to save lives by helping people take the actions that can lead to early detection of breast cancer.
]]>We have the core functionality in place that allows users to create an account, add and manage goals. You can add Action Items to each goal and both Goals and Action Items have the functionality to set Due Dates and Reminders – either by email or text message.
We are working on some clean up to the core systems right now.
Phase 2 will include adding an optional social networking feature that will allow users to share their goals, view others’ goals, and also join together in groups to work on common goals.
Ultimately, we hope Goalvana will be a powerful mechanism for helping people on a very personal level – and for those who prefer to keep it completely private – and for those who wish to share and utilize the social aspect to use the power of groups and network effects to further fuel their ability to achieve their dreams.
]]>View photos of the Pink Sundial Bridge test lighting.
Over the summer of 2009, we became involved in a special Think Pink project to illuminate the Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay in pink for Think Pink Day on October 15th, 2009. The concept of lighting the Sundial Bridge in pink had been around for several years, but in the past had met resistance from officials involved with the bridge.
Abra requested permission from Think Pink to take another run at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park and the City of Redding and received support to again pursue the pink lighting of the Sundial Bridge. After several letters and meetings with the City, the request was put before the City Council and approved.
Abra will be developing a module where people who take photos and video of this event will be able to upload them to the Think Pink website.
View Record Search story on Pink Sundial Bridge
Read more about thePink Sundial Bridge at Abra’s main site. .
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